INTERNET SOUL

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Steve Jobs was on stage at Macworld 2007 just some time ago and he officially introduced the iPhone that everyone has been yearning for for years.

The iPhone is being described as a widescreen, touch-controlled iPod, a mobile phone and an ‘internet communicator’, all rolled into one device.

The iPhone runs a version of OS X, allowing for full fledged apps to be created for the phone, rather than the limited versions of other mobile phone applications.

The iPhone is a fully touch screen device with no keys at all or even a stylus. The screen is a large, 3.5cm one with a high resolution. It uses Apple’s new, patented ‘multi-touch’ input method that supposedly prevents any accidental touches or presses, boasting of a new level of accuracy with touch input.

When required, a full QWERTY keypad is displayed on the screen, similar to Windows Mobile or Symbian UIQ phones, but this one supposedly is easier to type on, automatically eliminating any mistakes you may make from typing.

The iPhone has interesting features such as iTunes’ CoverFlow running on the phone in widescreen mode. It can play not only music, but also videos and photos. Photos can be zoomed in or out by using finger gestures such as moving them closer together or away from each other.

The device seems a little large in the hands, but it’s ultra slim at just 11.6mm, which is thinner than the RAZR. It comes with a standard 3.5mm stereo headphones jack and a built-in speaker. It has the iPod connector to sync with iTunes on the PC or Mac. It will come with a wired, stereo headset and also a Bluetooth headset.

The iPhone also has a 2 megapixel digital camera built into the device.

There’s a choice of 4GB or 8GB of space available on the iPhone to use. There is no option of adding any extra memory via memory card slots.

The iPhone is a quad-band GSM device with EDGE support. Unfortunately, there is no 3G/WCDMA support, which would have been expected of a device being touted as ‘revolutionary’. It also runs Safari, the web browser, for full HTML support. The phone comes with Google Maps built-in.

Email is covered by a POP3/IMAP client. They’ve mentioned support for Microsoft Exchange as well, but that may just be over IMAP. Yahoo will be providing free push-IMAP email to iPhone customers, giving them BlackBerry-like features.

Personal and local connectivity is handled by Bluetooth 2.0 and WiFi support.

The device is expected to offer around 5 hours of talk time and 16 hours of music playback time.

The iPhone will be available this June, exclusively on Cingular in the US. The 4GB version will cost $499 (Rs. 22,500) and the 8GB version will cost $599 (Rs. 26,700).

The recent controversy surrounding social networking site, Orkut has prompted parent company, Google, to work towards making it safer and friendlier for Indian users. Google has assigned a team from its headquarters, to work closely with the Delhi Cyber crime investigation cell. A Google spokesperson has confirmed the initiative and revealed that the team will be meeting the police from various Indian states, to develop a special 'reporting tool' for Indian authorities.

The spokesperson said, “We take the misuse of Orkut very seriously and are reaching out to the appropriate authorities in India to address this." The initiative is directed towards supporting the law enforcement authorities in their investigation against Orkut and Gmail abusers.

This reporting tool will enable the police to have a direct line of contact with Google, to remove objectionable material or aid in investigation and prosecution. The spokesperson elaborated that this new reporting tool will not affect the way Google treats users' data. Authorities will be required to follow the standard legal process in order to get user-identifying information from Google, but the tool will offer a faster, direct communication between Google and Indian authorities.

The spokesperson said, "Orkut is a community website, so we take the obligations set forth in the Community Standards seriously. We want to foster an environment in which users feel safe, as well as free to speak and interact. Criminals cannot hide behind privacy and use the service for illegal purposes. We will balance all requests with the interests of our users. When we learn about violations, we review and take the necessary actions, which can include removal of the inappropriate content. We have done in many cases, and will continue to do so. That said, we believe that the Internet should be a place that allows and encourages free expression, including controversial and unpopular ideas and opinions."

In response to the recent controversy regarding the Shivaji Community, which caused an uproar in Maharashtra, the Google spokesperson said, "We reviewed the community and have removed it, as it violated our community standards. The case for 'We hate India' community is sub-judice and we cannot provide any comments on the case or the proceedings of the case. We respect the authorities in India and are committed to working with them."

When asked if Google is working on any special filter to weed out objectionable content from the site, Google says it has implemented numerous tools to receive, handle and respond to complaints about content on Orkut. "At the same time, we put a certain amount of trust in our users to notify us of violations; the energy and attention of the Orkut community has proven to be very effective in identifying and reporting inappropriate activity. Orkut users can report content to our reviewers by clicking the 'report as bogus' button. There are also tools for community owners to delete posts or topics, ban users and delete anonymous posts."

Brazil has lifted the ban on video sharing site, YouTube.com, after a Brazilian court reversed its decision to block the site in the country. The Brazilian court had previously asked all internet service providers to block YouTube, after famous Brazilian model Daniela Cicarelli's sex video was posted on the site . The judge had demanded that the site be blocked off until the objectionable video was pulled down.

Judge Enio Santarelli Zulianio has now revised his ruling and allow internet service providers to reestablish access to the site, but only on the condition that YouTube permanently removes the particular sex video, which was the most viewed video in Brazil for days last year. However, technology experts say that getting rid of the video entirely, is difficult because users can repost it under different titles, which may be tough to track down.

Cicarelli and boyfriend Renato Malzoni, had filed a lawsuit last year, to force YouTube to take the video down and demanded $116,000 in damages for each day the video remained. The case dragged on for several months so Malzoni filed a third suit in December requesting that YouTube be shut down as long as the video is available to users.

Tuesday, January 2, 2007

Microsoft has been accused of trying to influence and even bribe tech bloggers by 'gifting' them Acer Ferrari PCs, loaded with Microsoft Vista. The two models (Acer Ferrari 1000 and 5000), worth approximately $2,400 each, were handed to big and small bloggers as Christmas gifts.

Microsoft issued a statement last week, saying the company "sent out machines loaded with Windows Vista, to bloggers to encourage them to experience the product and to solicit their valuable feedback, offering full disclosure that no editorial commentary was expected as a condition of acceptance." However, the issue has drawn criticism from some of the bloggers themselves, as well as others, on grounds that these bloggers are bound by journalistic ethics which prohibits 'gifts' from companies they write about.

After the matter was publicized on the net and widely criticized by internet surfers, a Microsoft employee sent an e-mail to some of the recipients of the laptops, asking them to return or give away the machines when they had finished evaluating Vista. However, the spokeswoman for Microsoft stated that the follow-up message had caused confusion and that the bloggers were still welcome to keep the computers they had been given.

Monday, January 1, 2007

Every computer on the internet communicates using a traceable address. This means that a third party with the knowwho can determine what websites you visited and who your Internet Service Provider (ISP) is. Even the content of the webpages you view or mail you read can be intercepted and seen if encryption isn't used. But there are ways to beat such snoops.

The JAP Anonymizer is a software that was developed as part of an ongoing research project at the University of Dresden. Instead of connecting directly to web server, users take a detour, connecting after the encryption through several intermediaries, so called mixes, which are linked in predetermined sequences know as mix cascades. Since many users use these intermediaries at the same time, the Internet connection of any one single user is hidden among the connections of all users.

Tor can help you improve your safety, anonymity and security on the Internet. It also has a platform on which new applications with built-in anonymity, safety, and privacy features can be created. It uses a very simple and ingenious method where communications are bounded around a distributed newtork of servers, called onion routers. Instead of taking a direct route from source to destination , data packets on the Tor nework take a random pathway through several servers that cover your tracks so no one can tell where the data came from. Tor was designed and developed by the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory.

If your idea of fans is a group of Star Wars geeks marching around with fake light sabers or football freaks crying out - and crying - in pubs, then you probably aren't very far from the truth. Once considered the cash cows of their chosen passions, fans are now getting savvier, and using their numbers to rake in the moolah through fan sites. We take a look at some of the most popular sites in the category.

Probably the first and the most successful site of it's kind, Ain't It Cool News is one of the most influential and widely read film fan sites in the world. Founded by Harry Knowles, a film buff, in 1996 to review and inform people about the film and television, the site soon acquired reputation for breaking news provided by anonymous insiders and Knowle's colourful reviews.

"The comics site you have to visit," says the tagline, and anyone who has visited Comic Book Resources would find it hard to disagree with that statement. Founded in 1996 by Jonah Weiland, CBR is literally a treasure trove for fans of comics and graphic novels. It has very active message boards and like AICN, gets news and gossip through fans and industry insiders.It's most popular feature is it's extensive database, which has led many to draw a comparison between CBR and the Internet Movie Database(IMDB), the world's most extensive movie database.

This Essex-based site is a model of internet-style democracy. It is a soccer fanzine run for fans, by fans, with most of the content generated by users. Most of the news consists of sideline and transfer gossip, but the biggest USP of this site is that it has customised pages nad newsletters on all clubs in the English Premier League, Serie A, La Liga and Scottish Premier League. Fansfc, however, remains a predominantly England-centric site, and falls short when it comes to European football.

Harry Potter fan sites outnumber most other franchises on the Net, but the best among them is one created in 1999 by a 12-year-old, Emerson Spartz. Left with a little too much time due to home schooling, Spartz created Mugglenet.com for fun. Mugglenet's features aren't very different from the most Potter fan sites but are easier to access and offer a wider variety. They include descriptions of the first six Potter-books, rumours about the seventh book, and information on the first five movies. The site also has an e-newsletter, games and editorials.

Although not in the same league as foreign sites, Indianfootball.com has managed to carve a niche for itself. Started in 1998 by Arunava Chaudhuri, a football fan looking to do something for the game in India, IFC is today the most widely visited Indian football website. With a relatively good database and extensive coverage of domestic football, it is the first major site of its kind in the country and can hopefully start a trend in India.

If your idea of fans is a group of Star Wars geeks marching around with fake light sabers or football freaks crying out - and crying - in pubs, then you probably aren't very far from the truth. Once considered the cash cows of their chosen passions, fans are now getting savvier, and using their numbers to rake in the moolah through fan sites. We take a look at some of the most popular sites in the category.

Probably the first and the most successful site of it's kind, Ain't It Cool News is one of the most influential and widely read film fan sites in the world. Founded by Harry Knowles, a film buff, in 1996 to review and inform people about the film and television, the site soon acquired reputation for breaking news provided by anonymous insiders and Knowle's colourful reviews.

"The comics site you have to visit," says the tagline, and anyone who has visited Comic Book Resources would find it hard to disagree with that statement. Founded in 1996 by Jonah Weiland, CBR is literally a treasure trove for fans of comics and graphic novels. It has very active message boards and like AICN, gets news and gossip through fans and industry insiders.It's most popular feature is it's extensive database, which has led many to draw a comparison between CBR and the Internet Movie Database(IMDB), the world's most extensive movie database.

This Essex-based site is a model of internet-style democracy. It is a soccer fanzine run for fans, by fans, with most of the content generated by users. Most of the news consists of sideline and transfer gossip, but the biggest USP of this site is that it has customised pages nad newsletters on all clubs in the English Premier League, Serie A, La Liga and Scottish Premier League. Fansfc, however, remains a predominantly England-centric site, and falls short when it comes to European football.